Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Saturday, August 04, 2012

Singularity U's Exponentially Accelerating Profiteering

Well, that certainly didn't take long.

WIRED:
As it draws up plans to become a for-profit corporation, Singularity University has significantly tightened the terms under which its students may use the intellectual property they develop in their courses. When it was created four years ago with support from neighboring Google and Google’s co-founder Larry Page, the prestigious but non-accredited institution was all about teaching “exponentially advancing technologies” as a supplement to a traditional education. Now Singularity U. apparently believes it can best promote those technologies and address humanity’s biggest problems by better controlling and assisting student startups, reading between the lines of new contracts students are being asked to sign… “It’s becoming a company all the way,” says one recent summer-program graduate. “It’s been a big shift. … If you asked me now, ‘Would you like to come to SU?’ I would say ‘Yes, for the first five weeks,’ because they gather an incredible group of people. But the last 10 weeks is about working on a company SU is going to own. … And they can take it out of your hands forever.” According to the university, the issue isn’t so much control but resolving conflicts before they start…. The university’s overseers see commercialization as key to their mission and are searching for ways to trade Singularity U.’s nonprofit structure for a new status as a profit-making California benefit corporation… Its new intellectual property restrictions pave the way for that type of aggressive commercialization… Some faculty, including serial startup founder David Orban, think seizing more control of its intellectual property will help the university more rapidly and effectively respond to technological progress and social change… At the same time, it seems odd that a charitable education institution is acting to restrict the flow of knowledge, particularly when its stated mission is to impart such knowledge and to “inspire a new generation of leaders.”
To some of us, this "shift" not only doesn't seem "odd" at all, but is exactly what we expected all along. When it comes to futurists you really should always ask an anti-futurist first if what you want is a reasonable prediction about the future of "The Future." Honestly, the Ayn Raelians of the liber-techian digi-topia are as robotically predictable in their profiteering con-artistry as they are in their techno-transcendental crack-pottery.

1 comment:

jimf said...

> ". . .the last 10 weeks is about working on a company SU
> is going to own. … And they can take it out of your hands
> forever.” According to the university, the issue isn’t so much
> control but resolving conflicts before they start. . .
> Some faculty, including serial startup founder David Orban, think
> seizing more control of its intellectual property will help the
> university more rapidly and effectively respond to technological
> progress and social change. . .

"'. . .I don't want the superintelligence to come
into existence before I'm uploaded. It's very important to me that I'm the
first transcendent being in this stellar system. I can't risk having to compete
with another resource-hungry entity: I have personal plans that require at
least one Jovian mass of computronium.'

'Really? I have "personal plans" that require Naveen Andrews and a bottle of
coconut oil, but I don't expect they're going to happen either.'

Caplan was bemused. 'Why are you so hostile?'

'I don't know,' Nasim confessed. 'Maybe it's because I've had enough experience
of deluded fundamentalists to last a lifetime.'

'Well, you're wasting your energy,' Caplan replied loftily. 'One way or
another, everything I speak of will come to pass. You can either join us,
or be left behind.'"

-- Greg Egan, _Zendegi_

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/wakefield/us-09.html
---------------
_Understanding Scientology_, by Margery Wakefield
Chapter 9
The Sea Org -- "For the Next Billion Years..."

I, ___________________ DO HEREBY AGREE to enter into employment with
the SEA ORGANIZATION and, being of sound mind, do fully realize and agree to
abide by its purpose which is to get ETHICS IN on this PLANET AND UNIVERSE
and, fully and without reservation, subscribe to the discipline, mores and
conditions of this group and pledge to abide by them.

THEREFORE, I CONTRACT MYSELF TO THE SEA ORGANIZATION FOR THE NEXT BILLION YEARS.